Who should be able to do more pull ups - a gymnast or a rock climber?

5.13+ rock climber here. I think it is a fair question and I had to think about this for a while. I would give a slight edge to the gymnast. My main reasoning is gymnastics is pure conditioning and most top gymnasts have been practicing upper body strength since they were young. Its a more specialized and developed sport. Climbing on the other hand is more of a casual sport. It has gotten more developed in recent years and training has evolved, but not to the level of gymnastics.

I rarely focus on pull ups. I mostly train finger strength and power endurance. If I did 20 full, good form pull ups, I would be surprised. Although, some guys and girls can do 30-40 pull ups. There are a few that can do 6-7 single arm pull ups.

With that being sad, who holds the world record for pulls and what is his/her background?

Serious???? wrote:

You've all got to be joking. This is a sample of what 7 year old gymnasts are expected to do:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3VUDLIcdUKE

Gymnastics conditioning is insane. They are the strongest athletes pound for pound of any sport. The idea that they don't have arm or grip strength is ridiculous - have you seen the arms and shoulders of gymnasts? Do you have any idea how much strength the sport takes? Try doing 1 pullover on bars and understand the strength a basic move like Kip cast handstand takes...

These parents are pure trash.

Nice video channel of your 7 year-old.

"Some black kid."

Snooze Alarm wrote:

I am a semi-pro level climber (5.13/14). It should be pointed out that most climbers don't do many pullups as they aren't critical to success (finger strength and footwork being the primary limiting factors).

One summer in my mid-50s, I worked up to 30 controlled standard pullups in a set. That wasn't my limit, but it's a good reference point I think. I'm 6'0" and a guy who is 5'6" should be able to crush that. One area that I think climbers would excel at is a dead-arm hang from a bar, especially alternating arms.

In terms of muscular endurance, I suspect most gymnasts are like sprinters/800 guys whereas climbers (except bouldering specialists) are more like 1500-3000 guys.

If you are past your mid-50s, you are not semi-pro.

And you are not 5.13/14. It is 5.13 or 5.14. YOU are probably 5.13, or 5.12 given your propensity of self-aggrandizement.

this or that wrote:

Assume they are at the same competitive level in their field

As a rock climber, one of the previous posters is correct. Rock climbing relies much more on leg strength and endurance, as the upper body muscles fatigue rapidly, particularly on thin edges and cracks. Finger grip strength thus is more important than pull up ability, as far as upper body musculature. Gymnasts make quite good climbers, many former gymnasts are at the top of the rock climbing sport. That being said, pull up capacity and strength is certainly quite important, as is strength to body weight ratio. One of my training routines involved finger tip pull ups, as that's what you find you're faced with in many cases up on the big walls. I never could quite master the multiple one arm pull ups, as some could.

That's not my kid. I don't have any. I'm not even American. Also I'm not even white.

I picked a TOPS video at random (it shows up first in a search) to show some of the conditioning tests gymnasts do. Actually, they used to have a pull-up test timed in a minute but it's gone now - I would have picked an older video if I knew that. I was a competitive gymnast though before I ran, and even at the low levels I can tell you that we were expected to do sets of 20 pull-ups with legs held straight and together at 90 degrees in front of us since age 5. At higher levels, you do pull-ups to your waist, then turn upside down to hollow hold then back down. Just to do basic skills on bars you need to train like marine boot camp to get enough strength. Early training is all massive strength work so you can do the skills.

I don't think the people on this board understand what gymnastics conditioning is. Like people are talking about 30 pull-ups with bent legs like that's hard.

When I went back to do adult gymnastics for fun I couldn't even lift my arms to wash my face for the first 3 days after just from holding handstand and stuff - you don't realize how many grip muscles etc you're using just swinging on bars. And even in casual adult rec we were doing sets of 20 pull-ups from hang.

"… Pull ups? Nobody on the football team could make 20. Kupets hadn’t broken a sweat at 20. …"

I had the same thought reading Snooze, though to be fair, Bill Ramsey is in his mid 50s, climbing 5.14, and pretty modest great guy. Not suggesting Snooze is Ramsey but while Snoozes comment smells funny, it's not entirely impossible.

O.K., I will notify my sponsors, my clients and my publishers ASAP. Stop sending the checks, I'm too old and write "14" instead of "5.14"!And you are right, most of the year, I am climbing 5.12/13, even falling on an occasional 5.11 trad.. I can't boulder for $*(!#. Just like some runners can't sprint or get within x seconds of their PR while in base training, but somehow manage to peak properly and make the final or run a new PR. I haven't met Bill Ramsey or Chuck Odette, but have tons of respect for their durability and motivation. I know the dedication it takes, and the care to avoid injuries.From my experience, most good rock climbers have no formal backround in gymnastics, they start climbing young (unlike me, there were no gyms when I was a kid, and no rocks locally). Some of these gymnasts seem to go on to parcours, which frankly is pretty mind-blowing stuff. While I can visualize a genetically strong guy like Honnold free-soloing hard stuff, flinging one's self off buildings just seems downright insane. Way more impressive than a bunch of pullups.

Gymnast. those people are unreal. Chicks are freaks in bed!

Freaks!!!

I suspect that either could throw up some pretty ridiculous pull up totals if they trained specifically to do pull ups. When I was a 135 lb runner I could do 20-23 pull ups and 5-6 one arm pulls simply by training with 3-5 sets to failure a couple days a week after track practice. I was hardly unique amongst my teammates. I was very weak otherwise and would have been hard pressed to bench my body weight. My main advantage was my low body weight. Gains came quickly. If a skinny runner can do that then a climber or gymnast would destroy those numbers.

I offered $200 to anyone who could break 2 minutes in Dead arm Orangutan hang. No one ever did.You have to stabilize wrist and immediately minimize torque by stabilizing shoulder so you don't spin. Most people can't hang on more than 60 seconds. No gloves or adhesive substance allowed, straight bar only, with no finger holes, etcgood luck! 1:55 is my record

Bad Wigins wrote:

Snooze Alarm wrote:

One area that I think climbers would excel at is a dead-arm hang from a bar, especially alternating arms.

No human can really excel at that, the wrist bones aren't configured to maintain the grip. An ape can do it nearly indefinitely, but an ape can't dextrously grip tools like a human. Human grip is sideways.

Climbers are silly trying to be like their ape ancestors.

My daughter is a competitive gymnast. She does an insane amount of conditioning and always win pull up contests - I think she can do 40 full pull ups. It's the bars that really requires the upper body strength and moves like a cast to handstand are super tough.

Former skinny middle distance wrote:

I suspect that either could throw up some pretty ridiculous pull up totals if they trained specifically to do pull ups. When I was a 135 lb runner I could do 20-23 pull ups and 5-6 one arm pulls simply by training with 3-5 sets to failure a couple days a week after track practice. I was hardly unique amongst my teammates. I was very weak otherwise and would have been hard pressed to bench my body weight. My main advantage was my low body weight. Gains came quickly. If a skinny runner can do that then a climber or gymnast would destroy those numbers.

What is your definition of "one arm pulls?" From my experience, people who can do 1, not to mention 5-6 one arm pull ups could do well above 23 pull ups.

I understand a one arm pull up as one harm holding onto the bar and the other hand hanging free, not holding onto anything else.

Snooze, who are you? 50+ 5.14 climber and runner? Can't be too many around.

Ondra wrote:

Snooze, who are you? 50+ 5.14 climber and runner? Can't be too many around.

Of course I would rather take cyanide than put my name out on this board, and while I am well-known locally, I have zero presence outside of my locale as I do no self-promotion. Yeah, if you put together enough qualifiers (50+, runner, climber, Teacup-Chihuaha-breeder, etc.) you end up as a unique dude!

I guess the one thing that I can affix some pride to is my lack of injury in 30+ years of pushing myself in climbing and training. This is in part due to my struggles with running injuries for over 40 years (but still chuggin along). Running really sucks except when it's awesome.

its nice to know theres climbers/runners out there than just me. I climb 5.13c and boulder v8 as well as being able to run 10 miles under 55 min. I'd like to think im pretty special but now that theres at least two other runner climbers on these boards im wondering if theres more.

pishposh wrote:

its nice to know theres climbers/runners out there than just me. I climb 5.13c and boulder v8 as well as being able to run 10 miles under 55 min. I'd like to think im pretty special but now that theres at least two other runner climbers on these boards im wondering if theres more.

thats awesome!

5.13c/4.35 this year. I found training low mileage for the mile much easier to do when also training for climbing.

obviously you guys have never seen Sean McColl train:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0vOH_XGWFU

rock climbers like him would destroy anyone

I was a gymnast, now I'm a climber. Competitive at both. I can do a lot more pull ups now as a climber than I ever could as a gymnast--I think the difference is, like someone else said above, in gymnastics you train a bigger variety of muscles for a bigger variety of movements. With climbing you end up with more pull-up-specific strength.

Stevie Haston begs to differ!

Although, I agree, I think there was a fair bit of "optimism" in Snooze Alarm's post...